Howe’s Brooklyn: After-School Arts Program Showcases Teens, Thanks Supporters

CARROL GARDEN RESIDENT LISA M. CIRANDO and Brooklyn Heights resident JEANNE KANE ZAYKOWSKI, as event co-chairs, invite you to the Center for Family Life 2008 Annual Awards on May 14. The evening will celebrate 25 years of the Center’s “Life Lines” Community Arts Project in Sunset Park, which provides free after-school arts activities such as dance, acting, vocals, visual arts and creative writing to youth and families five days a week. Since 1990, “Life Lines” has also worked within MS 136 (and later MS 821), a school serving a predominantly Latino population of about 750 students in grades six to eight. In that capacity, the program collaborates with teachers, artists, social workers and students in semester-long projects that aim to increase student achievement and interest in learning.

SPECIAL HONOREES TO BE THANKED at the ceremony for their support are NYC Department of Youth and Community Development Commissioner JEANNE B. MULLGRAV and award-winning filmmaker and author ESMERELDA SANTIAGO. A Puerto Rican-born artist and activist, Santiago moved to Brooklyn with her large family when she was 13 and subsequently moved around the borough, living at different times on McKibbin Street, Varet Street, Pitkin Avenue, Stanhope Street, Glenmore Avenue, Fulton Street and more. Following the awards ceremony, “Life Lines” teens will provide the feature entertainment: an original play, “From the Stoops of Sunset,” as depicted by Williamsburg artist Jack Rivas on the event’s announcement. Visit www.cflsp.org for more event information.

AS PART OF THIS WEEKEND’S BKLYN DESIGNS FESTIVAL, Pratt Institute will present a discussion titled “Breaking In,” featuring alumni SAM CABOT COCHRAN, ERIKIA DOERING, LIZ KINNMARK, JOSHUA LONGO and SERGIO SILIVA. Interior Design Editor-in-Chief CINDY ALLEN will lead the panel, chatting with alumni about the challenges of establishing themselves as designers early in their careers in a highly competitive field. These alumni collectively have shown at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) and Art Basel, had designs featured on the cover of The New York Times, helped found the Association of Women Industrial Designers, had work produced and sold at MOMA, and launched successful design companies. 5 p.m. on May 9 at St. Ann’s Warehouse on 38 Water St., in DUMBO.

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INTERNATIONAL STUDIO & CURATORIAL PROGRAM (ISCP) is the first major art institution to call East Williamsburg home, according to the center, and founding Director DENNIS ELLIOTT and board members TED BERGER, KAREN KARP, CAROLYN SOMERS and ARTHUR ZEGELBONE welcome you to celebrate the official inauguration of the new space this weekend. ISCP hosts an Open Studios event twice a year and the next event, May 9, 10, 11 and 12, will open with a reception from 7 to 9 p.m., the first night. The free walk through gives a peek into recent projects and personal archives of 30 artists from 22 countries. ISCP hopes its new space, at 1040 Metropolitan Ave., will fill the need for a local artist meeting point. For more times and details, visit www.iscp-nyc.org.

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BEGINNING ON HIS RECENT 30TH BIRTHDAY, Brooklynite SCOTT BALLUM embarked upon a yearlong effort to discover the origins of everything he buys, reported Good Magazine. Ballum wants to establish a personal connection with someone along the production chain for everything he consumes, be it a manufacturer, trucker or farmer (the Maker’s Mark factory was an early stop in his journey). To keep the project to a manageable scale he is consuming locally grown and made products whenever possible. Ballum’s progress can be followed at www.sheeplessco.com/blog. Ballum is a senior designer at C&G Partners, who was profiled in the January “People to Watch in 2008” section of Graphic Design USA.

THE SECOND ANNUAL JOAN MAYNARD MEMORIAL AWARD LUNCHEON will salute six women who have made outstanding contributions to their community: Bed-Stuyvesant residents DOLORES CARTY, TOHMA FAULKNER, VALERIE OLIVER-DURRAH, and VIOLET CHANDLER; MABLE W. ROBERTSON of East Flatbush; and Crown Heights business owner DORIS BELL. The women will receive the 2008 Weeksville Lady Award on May 10 at Concord Baptist Church of Christ at 833 Gardner C. Taylor Blvd. The event will feature highly acclaimed veteran actor and special guest Ruby Dee reading from her Grammy Award-winning audio books.

ON MAY 6 ASSEMBLYMAN WILLIAM COLTON (D, Bensonhurst) announced the introduction of three bills regulating the reuse, recovery and recycling of construction and demolition (C&D) debris. The bills regulate C&D waste recovery by contractors in NYC, in NY State and by State agencies respectively. According to Build It Green! NYC, C&D activities produce 40 to 60 percent of NYC’s waste.

ARMY PVT. TOWAUNA A. GULLIVER, an ’06 graduate of Auxiliary Services for High Schools, Brooklyn, daughter of Michele Durand of Dean Street, and Army Reserve Pvt. Melissa A. Kingston, daughter of Jamnee Jugmahun of East 51st Street, have graduated from basic combat training at Fort Jackson, Columbia, S.C. During the nine weeks of training the soldiers received instruction and training exercises in Army history, military courtesy, physical fitness, first aid, map reading and land navigation and armed and unarmed combat.

THE 2008 NY CITY COLLEGE OF TECHNOLOGY VALEDICTORIAN, STACY CRUICKSHANK, 27, will receive two degrees this June: a bachelor of technology in facilities management and an associate degree in civil engineering technology. Cruickshank works with English Professor Richard Hanley, founding editor of Journal of Urban Technology, under a National Endowment for the Humanities grant to study the Brooklyn waterfront. She is compiling an archive of newspaper articles and writing synopses of events held at the College and Brooklyn Historical Society, focused on the waterfront’s development, Walt Whitman and other related topics. Cruickshank is graduating with a 3.93 grade point average and is a two-time winner of the prize in Creative Poetry for Adults at the Grenada Arts Festival, for her poems “From Dawn to Dusk” and “Utopia.”